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One Year Anniversary

New Home- Somewhere off the beaten path in Washington

Their new home sat at the edge of a quiet township that felt fifty years removed from the frantic pulse of D.C., despite being only twenty miles from FBI headquarters. It was the exact kind of place Mulder had once idyllically described to her on a porch in Pennsylvania, a place of tree-lined streets, salt-thick air, and the distant, echoing sound of kids riding bicycles until the streetlights came on.

They just wanted a safe, quiet corner of the universe to finally call their own.

For most of their lives, “home” had never been a place. It had been stolen time in rental cars, bad motel rooms, hospital corridors, late-night stakeouts, and the fragile sanctuary of each other’s presence in the dark.

Now, for the first time, they had walls that belonged to them.

A future that belonged to them.

The house itself was a sturdy craftsman painted a weathered off-white. It featured a wide, wraparound porch and ancient, groaning floorboards that smelled faintly of pine, woodsmoke, and the promise of permanence.

They had driven poor Arthur Pendelton, their endlessly patient real estate agent, slightly crazy trying to find it. After visiting dozens of listings, Mulder had been ready to compromise on a charming but cramped colonial, but Scully had been absolutely adamant: she was not settling. If they were doing this, they were doing it right. She had spent her life as a nomad, moving between naval bases and sterile apartments; she wasn't just buying real estate, she was claiming a sanctuary.

They had moved in exactly six weeks ago, and true to her meticulously organized nature, Scully had immediately gotten to work. There wasn't a single cardboard moving box in sight on the main floor.

Her primary, non-negotiable stipulation for the house had been an office large enough for the both of them. The massive, sunlit study just off the hallway now comfortably held two heavy oak desks pushed together, facing each other.

Anyone crossing the threshold could immediately discern which side belonged to whom: Scully’s desk was an efficient, highly organized expanse of polished wood with no clutter. Mulder’s side was a chaotic, sprawling epicenter of case files and newspaper clippings, anchored on the far edge by the soft, rhythmic bubbling of his fishtank. It was complete with a fresh cluster of yellow number-two pencils already dangling defiantly from the ceiling directly above his chair, and a telltale scattering of discarded sunflower seed shells near his keyboard.

It was Sunday morning. For the first time in weeks, they had nowhere to be.

Mulder sat at the large kitchen table in his white t-shirt and navy blue cotton boxers, surrounded by a sprawling mess of manila folders. He was mindlessly cracking sunflower seeds between his teeth, a small, growing pile of shells gathering on a paper towel. A steaming mug of coffee sat forgotten at his elbow as he pored over the documents, hunting for a viable new case for them to take.

"Scully!" he shouted toward the hallway, not looking up from a coroner's report. "Tell me how a man in perfectly good health spontaneously drowns in a landlocked desert town without a drop of water in his lungs!"

"I would have to look at the toxicology report, Mulder!" Scully's voice echoed back from the bedroom.

"The tox screen is clean! I'm telling you, it has to be an atmospheric anomaly, or maybe localized fluid displacement—"

"Or a faulty autopsy report from an underfunded county morgue!" she yelled back.

"The medical examiner is a board-certified pathologist! He knows the difference between a dry drowning and asphyxiation!" Mulder countered, flipping a page.

"And I'm sure his methodology is sound!" her voice drifted out, sounding slightly muffled as if she had stepped into the closet. "But without physically examining the lung tissue myself, I can't rule out a severe, rapid-onset laryngospasm!"

"Even if his body was found in the dead center of a radioactive crop circle?" Mulder shouted back, grinning as he held a crime scene photo up to the empty room.

There was a long beat of silence from the bedroom.

"What?" Scully yelled.

Mulder let out a loud, put-upon sigh, dropping the photo onto the table. He loved their intellectual sparring, but the distance was currently driving him crazy. "When are you coming in here?"

The sound of her voice echoing through their house still did something catastrophic to him. Even after all the time they have been together, some irrational part of Mulder kept expecting this life to vanish when he blinked.

"Coming!"

A few seconds later, the soft pad of bare feet against the hardwood announced her arrival. Mulder looked up from his files and instantly lost his train of thought.

Scully stood in the kitchen doorway wearing one of his oversized blue button-down shirts and what appeared to be nothing else. The sleeves were clumsily rolled up past her elbows, and the stiff, masculine cotton swamped her petite frame, the hem hitting midway down her bare thighs. The top three buttons were undone, exposing the pale slope of her collarbone and the soft curve of her breasts. Her fiery hair fell in loose waves around her shoulders, and her face was completely bare of makeup. Without her usual armor of professional foundation, the light, endearing dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks stood out starkly.

It was, without a single doubt, his absolute favorite version of her.

"What's up?" she asked, leaning against the doorframe with a soft, relaxed smile.

Mulder abandoned the files entirely, his gaze dragged slowly over her.

"What's up?," he echoed roughly, infatuated, ensorceled by her as always.

He pushed his chair back from the table and tossed the remaining sunflower seeds onto the table as he reached out. "Come over here, Scully."

She walked over, yielding easily as his hands caught her by the waist. With a practiced, effortless motion, he pulled her forward, guiding her to swing a leg over his lap. Scully laughed softly as she sank down to fully straddle him, the movement hiking the oversized button-down high up her bare thighs. She settled her weight over his center, her knees firmly bracketing his hips, before his arms swept around her back. He pushed her flush against him, letting her feel the hard lines of his chest against her softer curves as she wrapped her arms loosely around his neck.

Mulder didn't waste a second. He leaned in, pressing a heavy, lingering kiss to her lips before trailing his mouth down the soft, exposed skin of her neck. He inhaled the clean, sleep-warm scent of her skin, his large hand sliding up her bare thigh to slip beneath the hem of the oversized shirt.

It still amazed her sometimes how effortlessly this physical intimacy had become their new normal. They had spent so much time during their partnership in an agonizing restraint, orbiting each other with a gravitational pull they had stubbornly refused to act on. But the moment the dam had finally broken, there had been no awkward transition, no hesitant fumbling to redefine their boundaries. They had simply slotted together as naturally and involuntarily as breathing.

Lately, it felt like they were trying to reclaim lost time. They were often as insatiable as a pair of teenagers, incapable of keeping their hands to themselves. But even in the grip of all that feral, unspent desire, they were still unmistakably Mulder and Scully. The blinding heat didn't erase their dynamic; it just amplified it. He still stubbornly debated the validity of localized fluid displacement while his hands mapped her curves, and she still fiercely defended her clinical methodology even as her pulse skyrocketed against his skin.

"Wait, wait, wait," Scully gasped, a breathless laugh escaping her lips as she abruptly popped her hips up, slipping right out of his grasp and off his lap.

Mulder let out a frustrated groan, his fingers catching the hem of the shirt and lifting it up just a fraction. "I need to see."

"No, no, no, not that," she said, quickly batting his hand away and pulling the shirt back down to preserve her modesty. Her eyes, deep, saturated cobalt, sparkled with mischievous excitement. "I want to show you something in the next room."

"But I want to see something in this room," Mulder countered.

Catching a fleeting glimpse of dark lace before she batted his hand away, Mulder crossed his arms over his chest with a skeptical, yet distinctly smug, eyebrow raise. "Black panties, Scully. That's my weakness."

She rolled her eyes playfully, turning toward the hallway. "You say that about every pair of panties, Mulder."

"But it's true," he deadpanned, following right on her heels. "They're all my weakness."

Scully took his wrist in her hand, leading him out of the hallway and straight into the adjacent study. Sitting in the center of Mulder's desk, surrounded by the neatly stacked books she had organized earlier that week, was a large, rectangular package wrapped in sleek silver paper. A small anniversary card was tucked beneath the ribbon.

She had been busy wrapping it while they were yelling back and forth about the case files.

"Happy Anniversary," she murmured, a sudden, shy vulnerability softening her voice as she stood next to the desk.

Mulder took it, his long fingers making quick work of the paper. When the wrapping fell away, he froze.

The canvas was breathtaking, the colors saturated and vivid. The artist had bathed the pristine white summer house in Quonochontaug in the nostalgic, heavy gold of a late afternoon sun. But Mulder's eyes bypassed the house, locking instantly onto the porch railing. Painted leaning against the whitewashed wood were two beautifully rendered bicycles, a blue ten-speed with dropped handlebars, and resting perfectly right beside it, a bright yellow girl's bike with a glittering banana seat and a white wicker basket.

His conscious mind couldn't quite place the origin of the sudden, devastating wave of emotion that crashed into his chest, but his soul recognized the image instantly. Looking at those two bikes on the porch triggered a phantom, echoing sensation of starlight.

"I commissioned an artist," Scully explained softly, her eyes anxiously scanning his paralyzed profile. "A while back, we were looking through one of your old albums and you showed me a photograph. It was just the porch and the bikes, but... something about it spoke to me. I gave it to the painter for reference." She hesitated, her voice dropping a fraction of an inch as she watched his chest stop moving. "I assume that blue one is your bike?"

Mulder couldn't tear his eyes away from the canvas.

He felt suddenly untethered.

A phantom warmth spread through his chest as Samantha's voice echoed with crystalline clarity in the recesses of his mind:

I sent her to you.

He didn't know why this specific image felt like a final absolution, but the certainty of it stole the remaining oxygen from his lungs.

He managed a slight, rigid nod.

"Yes," he whispered, his voice incredibly hollow and thick. "And that's Samantha's."

For one impossible moment, he could almost hear the distant screech of bicycle tires on pavement and Samantha’s laughter carried on summer air.

Not grief this time.

Memory.

Love.

Something healed instead of broken.

Scully’s brow furrowed slightly. She knew him better than she knew herself, and she could instantly read the catastrophic shift in his demeanor. This wasn't just ordinary nostalgia; he looked as though the ground had dropped out from beneath his feet. Perplexed by the sheer magnitude of his reaction, but trusting him implicitly, she didn't push. She simply stayed quiet, waiting patiently and giving him the space to process whatever profound realization had just gripped him.

Mulder didn't say another word. He couldn't. For a man who used words as a weapon and a shield, he was suddenly, entirely stripped of them. The crushing, beautiful weight of the gift lodged directly in his throat. He reached out, his trembling fingertips hovering just a millimeter above the painted yellow spokes, terrified that if he touched it, the memory would shatter.

He set the frame down on the desk with trembling hands. Beyond words, beyond logic, and beyond the boundaries they had tried so hard to maintain for so many years, he closed the remaining distance between them.

He pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his chest.

The force of it nearly knocked the breath from her lungs.

Not because he was hurting her but because Mulder loved like a man who had spent his entire life starving.

Scully didn't hesitate. Her arms immediately flew up, wrapping tightly around his neck as she buried her face in his shoulder. Mulder crushed her to him, one arm banding fiercely around her mid-back to lift her just slightly off her toes, while his other hand moved to cup the back of her head, holding her safe and flush against him.

He buried his face in her fiery hair, his chest heaving as he fought back the sting of tears. It took several long minutes before he could trust his voice again.

He slowly set her back down on her feet, his hands lingering on her waist. His chest was tight with lingering emotion. The sharp, golden flecks in his green eyes caught the dim light, his expression entirely stripped of his usual self-deprecating wit.

"I have something for you, too," he rasped. He let his hands slide down her arms, stepping away to retrieve a thick, heavy manila folder from his desk drawer. He placed it gently onto the wood between them.

Scully looked down at it, her brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "A case file?"

"A case file," Mulder confirmed softly. "On us."

Scully opened the cover. Inside was a staggering stack of heavily researched documents: highlighted legal precedents, declassified Bureau HR policies, demographic statistics, and psychological evaluations. "After the last IVF attempt failed..." Mulder swallowed hard, his voice dropping into a hushed, fiercely protective register. "You told me you were terrified we were automatically disqualified from adopting. You had convinced yourself that your medical history, our careers, and the danger of our lives made us unviable candidates on paper."

Scully froze, all the air rushing out of her lungs as she stared at the meticulous, obsessive amount of research staring back at her.

Fox Mulder, a man who built his entire life on intuition and blind leaps of faith, had spent over a year gathering hard, empirical data.

He hadn't tried to comfort her with hope.

He had answered her fear with evidence.

For Dana Scully, that was the purest form of love imaginable.

"I spent the last year pulling the data," Mulder whispered, stepping closer. "I found case law. I found precedents of active federal agents and people with complex medical histories successfully adopting. I built a profile on us, Scully. And I found an agency that specializes in placing children with law enforcement families. And now that we are married and finally have a real home to offer, we have an even greater chance."

Scully’s trembling fingers brushed over the top document. It was a formal adoption application, completely filled out, save for the blank signature lines at the bottom.

"I didn't submit anything," Mulder said fiercely, his hands coming up to gently cup her face, forcing her to look away from the file and up into his eyes. "I would never make that choice for you. But I couldn't let you carry the weight of that fear anymore. I needed you to have empirical proof that your fears are wrong. We aren't disqualified, Scully. There is a door open for us. If you want to walk through it."

Scully closed her eyes, a sharp, fractured sob tearing from her throat as she gripped his wrists. The impenetrable wall she had built around her heart to survive the barren reality of her diagnosis suddenly cracked wide open, flooded by the sheer, undeniable proof of his devotion. She dragged in a shaky breath, forcing her eyes open to look back down at the application.

"Where?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Montana," Mulder answered softly, his tone incredibly tender as he watched her process the magnitude of the document. "In a little town called Polaris."

The word hit her like a physical force.

In the space of a single heartbeat, the walls of the sunlit study vanished. Scully was suddenly thrust back in time, sitting in the passenger seat of a speeding sedan in the dead of night. She remembered the sheer terror, the overwhelming darkness, and the exact moment the dense, suffocating canopy of the forest had broken over a ridge to reveal a vast, breathless expanse of clear midnight sky.

And there…

A single, fixed point of light.

Polaris.

Steady and unyielding, like a beacon.

She had followed that star in the pitch-black to pull him from the absolute edge of death, and now, standing in the broad daylight, he was offering her that exact same star to build a new life. It felt like a bookend.

Scully’s breath caught in her throat. Her gaze locked onto Mulder's, her pulse stuttering not in wonder, but in profound, absolute recognition.

A constant.

But, she let the thought pass in silence, her logical mind stubbornly refusing to give credence to it.

Mulder’s thumbs swept gently across her cheekbones, wiping away the tear that spilled over her lashes, anchoring her firmly back to the sunlit study.

She reached up, her trembling hands covering his where they held her. She was overwhelmed by the beautiful, terrifying truth of the life they had finally built together, realizing, with sudden terrifying clarity, that every road had somehow led them here.

"Yes," she whispered, the single word carrying the weight of a vow.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

"I want to walk through it. With you."

A breathtaking smile broke across Mulder's face, clearing away decades of shadows. The crushing weight of the world they so often carried vanished, leaving only the sunlit study and the woman in front of him.

In one fluid, effortless motion, he reached down and scooped her up into his arms, lifting her off her feet.

Scully let out a startled, breathless laugh, her arms instinctively wrapping around his neck to steady herself as she looked down at him.

His heavy olive eyes were dancing with that familiar, boyish light, devoted and wonderfully wicked. "I am not giving up, Scully," he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration against her chest. "And I say we still continue to try the old-fashioned way."

A flush of pure, radiant heat rushed to her cheeks. She didn't roll her eyes or offer a clinical rebuttal. She simply tangled her fingers into the soft hair at the nape of his neck and leaned in to press her smiling mouth to his.

He carried her out of the study and down the short hallway, the familiar layout of their home a quiet testament to the life they had finally built.

When he laid her back onto the center of their mattress, the Sunday morning light spilled across the sheets in a warm, lazy pool.

This wasn't the feral collision of their first night together. The frantic urgency of survival had been replaced by something infinitely deeper. It was a slow, deliberate worship.

Scully let out a soft, breathless laugh, her hands reaching down to hook her thumbs into the delicate lace waistband. She arched her hips slightly, a wicked, playful light dancing in her icy blue eyes as she slid the fabric down her legs and tossed them casually to the floor.

"Well," she murmured, her voice laced with pure mischief, "since these are your weakness, Mulder, it's probably safest if I just take them off."

Mulder’s eyes darkened, tracking the movement before his gaze locked intensely back onto hers. He leaned over her, his expression softening into something incredibly tender.

"You're my weakness,” he whispered, dipping his head to press a soft kiss to her jaw, then another just below her ear. “And my strength."

He lowered his head, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the base of her throat. His rough stubble grazed the sensitive skin of her collarbone as he dragged his lips along the delicate curve of her neck, drawing a soft, surrendered sigh from her lips.

Scully reached for him, her hands sliding under the hem of his white t-shirt to push it up and over his head. When he was bare above her, she mapped the familiar planes of his chest, her palms sliding over the hot, taut skin and the rough, grounding friction of his chest hair. Her fingertips traced the heavy muscle with a reverence that felt like a prayer.

He wanted to take his time, to worship her in the sunlight. He stripped away the last of their clothes, tossing them to the floor, before settling his weight fully between her thighs. Bracing himself on his forearms, he captured her mouth again, the kiss slow, deep, and impossibly tender.

When he finally pulled back just enough to breathe, their lips still brushing, she looked up into his eyes.

"A paradox," she whispered against his mouth, her fingers tangling in the dark hair at the nape of his neck.

"Yes," he murmured, stealing another soft, lingering kiss, entirely captivated by the way her brilliant mind never stopped running. "We are a paradox. The skeptic and the believer."

With a low, affectionate hum, he dipped his head to press another painfully slow, lingering kiss to the wildly beating pulse at her neck, then trailed his mouth lower, tasting the soft swell of her breast. There was no rushing; every deliberate touch was an unspoken promise, every languid kiss a lingering affirmation.

His hands were unhurried as they swept down the curve of her waist, mapping the familiar topography of her body as if he were committing it to memory all over again. He trailed feather-light kisses down her sternum, pausing to press his lips gently to the faint silver scar on her abdomen. The small, puckered mark was a haunting reminder of Agent Ritter's bullet, and just how devastatingly close he had come to losing her. He had never admitted it out loud, but Mulder knew with absolute, terrifying certainty that if she had died on that operating table, he would have either killed the rookie agent with his bare hands and spent the rest of his life in federal prison, or ended up permanently locked inside a psych ward.

He lingered there, pressing another hot, reverent kiss against the faded tissue. It was a quiet, profound acknowledgment of everything she had survived, everything they had lost, and the beautiful, unbroken future they were finally building together.

Scully lay heavily against the mattress, completely adrift in the overwhelming tenderness of his touch. She let her eyes flutter shut, her fingers drifting lazily through the soft hair at the nape of his neck as his mouth continued its slow, reverent journey. For several long minutes, the only sound in the sunlit room was the quiet, synchronized cadence of their breathing and the soft, damp slide of his lips against her heated skin. He worshipped her with a devastating patience, drawing out every breathless sigh and making her feel entirely, perfectly cherished.

But the slow, agonizing worship was rapidly burning through Scully's remaining restraint. The heavy, pooling heat in her core was demanding a collision, not just a caress.

She let out a frustrated, needy whimper. While one hand moved up to tangle fiercely in his hair, her other hand slipped boldly down the sweat-dampened plane of his stomach to reach down between their bodies. Her warm fingers curled securely around his thick, rigid shaft, squeezing the hot, pulsing length of him. Her thumb deliberately circled the swollen, velvety head, catching a heavy, slick pearl of pre-come and smearing the wetness across the sensitive slit. It was irrefutable, intoxicating proof of exactly how close to the edge he already was, and how agonizingly hard he had been fighting his own restraint.

The sudden, overwhelming sensation made his breath catch sharply in his throat. He pushed up onto his forearms, his chest heaving, and Scully instantly captured his gaze. Her steady, clear blue eyes were blown wide, the pupils darkened with a feral need. She stared straight into his eyes, currently an unpredictable mix of forest green and amber, refusing to break contact for even a second as she tightened her grip and quickened the pace of her hand, letting him see exactly what she wanted.

She didn't want slow. She wanted him, all of him, right now. She yanked his head closer, her nails biting half-moons into his shoulder as she arched her hips upward, blindly seeking the heavy friction of his body.

"Mulder, please," she gasped. "Now."

"So impatient," he growled, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that sent a fresh thrill straight to her core.

The fragile restraint Mulder was clinging to violently snapped. The slow, deliberate reverence vanished, incinerated instantly by the frantic, starving demand in her voice, the inevitable tipping point of every time they collided.

He didn't make her wait another second. His large hands gripped her hips, dragging her up the mattress with him in a tangle of heated limbs until her bare back was pressed firmly against the cushioned headboard. Crowding her in so his broad chest was perfectly flush against hers, he held her gaze with unshielded, burning intensity.

"Tell me exactly what you want," he commanded softly, the dark timbre of his voice demanding her surrender.

"You," she whimpered, abandoning her clinical pride entirely. She parted her thighs wider for him. "I want you inside me."

"Yes," he breathed, guiding his slick tip directly against her wet folds. With a single, devastating upward thrust of his hips, he buried himself to the hilt, stretching her around him with a deep, overwhelming fullness that stole the air from her lungs.

Scully let out a sharp, shattered cry, her back arching against the headboard as she took the full, overwhelming length of him. The movement bowed her spine and thrust her chest forward. Mulder didn't hesitate. His large hand swept up, closing firmly and possessively over her bare breast. He squeezed the soft, flushed flesh, his rough thumb immediately finding and rolling heavily over her tight, sensitive peak. The intense, compounding jolt of pleasure made her legs lock instinctively around his waist to anchor him to her.

"Fuck, Scully," Mulder groaned, his voice rough and guttural as he absorbed the sheer heat of her. "You drive me crazy."

Pinned flawlessly between the headboard and the heavy, sweating heat of his body, she was utterly at his mercy. Mulder established a merciless rhythm, dropping his weight and pivoting his hips to drive upward, striking her deepest, most sensitive depths with every single thrust.

The rhythm was no longer slow; it was a desperate claiming. He drove into her with a heavy, bruising pace, their bodies slapping together in the quiet room.

"Don't stop," Scully begged, her hips bucking wildly against him to meet the relentless, pounding rhythm of his body. The quiet room filled with the breathless rhythm of them: skin, heat, gasps, whispered names. A breathless, filthy whimper caught in the back of her throat, a completely unspooled sound that belonged entirely to him. "Just like that," she husked, her thighs quivering as they locked even tighter around his waist.

"Fuck, yeah," he rasped.

Scully met every thrust with equal ferocity, her hands dragging down his sweat-slicked back as he pulled his mouth to hers. They swallowed each other's breathless, ragged moans as the kiss turned as hungry and urgent as the rhythm of their hips.

"Mulder!" she sobbed against his mouth, her voice a fractured, beautiful sound as the sheer intensity pushed her right to the edge.

"I'm here," he promised, his chest heaving violently against hers as he tore his mouth away to bury his face in the damp crook of her neck.

He was panting, his breath hot and ragged against her skin as his entire body trembled with the agonizing effort of holding himself back. He knew exactly what she craved, the precise, heavy pressure that made her completely lose her mind. Instead of pulling back for another deep thrust, he kept himself buried to the hilt, the wet, heavy friction sounding loud in the quiet room. He dropped his weight and rolled his pelvis upward, locking them together as he intentionally ground the thick, slick base of his shaft against her swollen, aching clit.

"I'm always going to be right here." He rocked his hips in a tight, shallow rhythm, maintaining that ruthless, wet friction directly over that hyper-sensitive bundle of nerves. His jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek as he desperately waited for her to shatter. "Come for me, Scully," he pleaded, his voice dropping into a filthy growl right against her ear. "Let me feel you take it."

They moved together in the sunlight, the lines between them blurred by sweat and sheer, chaotic heat. Knowing exactly what drove her completely over the edge, Mulder’s large hands slid down to firmly grip the soft, bare cheeks of her ass. With a sudden, possessive surge of strength, he hoisted her hips a few inches higher against the headboard. The shift radically altered their angle, forcing a sharp gasp from her lips as the thick, slick length of him seated impossibly deeper inside her core, while simultaneously bringing her flushed, heaving chest perfectly level with his face.

He didn't hesitate. He opened his hot, wet mouth over one tight, aching peak, drawing her deep inside. He sucked hard, swirling his tongue hungrily over the sensitive, pebble-hard flesh and lightly scraping his teeth against it. At the same time, his large hands kneaded her yielding warmth, anchoring her securely in place so he could grind his hips upward, lavishing her slick clit with exquisite, heavy friction.

Scully let out a shattered, filthy cry, her back bowing off the headboard. Her fingernails dug half-moons into his shoulders as the overwhelming sensory overload of his pulling mouth on her breast and his feverish, wet grinding below pushed her right to the absolute brink.

He released the slick peak with a soft pop, trailing his open, damp mouth up the long column of her throat to speak directly against her pulse. "That's it," he coaxed, his breath hot and ragged against her ear. "Let go for me."

The intense friction of his thick shaft sliding so deeply inside her wound a coil of pure fire tight in her belly, pushing her past the point of no return.

Her climax hit her with the force of a physical blow. "Oh! Yes!" Scully let out a fractured, sobbing cry, her vision going white as her inner walls suddenly seized. She clamped down hard and tight around him, her slick muscles fiercely milking him as blinding, violent spasms ripped through her body.

The intense, gripping pressure of her climax was the absolute end of his fragile control, shattering the last remnants of his restraint into a million brilliant pieces. Mulder drove his hips forward one final, excruciatingly deep time, burying himself to the hilt. "Scully," he groaned, a low, deep, guttural shout of pure surrender tearing from his throat.

There was worship in the way he said her name.

Relief.

Reverence.

The stunned gratitude of a man who still could not believe she was truly his.

He finally let go, his heavy frame shuddering violently as he drove deep and held himself flush against her. He chanted her name like a prayer as release tore through him in ragged, agonizing pulses, filling her with wave after hot wave.

When the heavy tremors finally subsided, he didn't pull away. He collapsed gently against her, letting the headboard take his weight as their chests heaved in tandem. He buried his face in the damp curve of her neck, and it took several long, quiet minutes before he finally found the strength to move. Not wanting to crush her, he let out a soft, reluctant exhale and began the slow process of untangling them from the upright position.

He wrapped his arms securely around her torso and simply let gravity do the work, his body sinking down and drawing her safely along with him. They slid down the pillows in a slow, languid descent, their connected bodies finally settling horizontal onto the mattress.

Once they were completely horizontal, his arms remained firmly banded around her as he shifted his weight, rolling them both gently onto their sides. He carefully adjusted their tangled legs and pulled her in close until they were lying flush, face-to-face, sharing the exact same shallow breaths. Scully rested her head against his chest, listening to the steady, rhythmic thud of his heart.

Eventually, she tipped her head back, shifting just enough against the pillows to look him in the eye. For a long while, neither of them spoke. The only sound in the room was the quiet, synchronized cadence of their breathing as the adrenaline finally ebbed away. Mulder raised a heavy arm, his fingers gently brushing a damp tangle of fiery hair away from her cheek before lazily stroking the soft, bare curve of her shoulder. Scully leaned into the caress, a contented sigh slipping from her lips. Her own hand rested flat over his chest, her thumb drawing mindless, soothing circles against his warm skin.

She held his gaze, watching the sharp intensity of his eyes soften into a look of pure, exhausted adoration.

Mulder let out a quiet, deeply satisfied breath, his fingers trailing idly down the curve of her spine. "So, Scully."

"Yes, Mulder?" she murmured lazily, entirely melted against his side.

"Now that we've officially satisfied the twelve-month contractual obligations of Aunt Olive's estate..." he began, his voice dropping into that low, conspiratorial murmur that always made her pulse jump. "And generated an overwhelming amount of empirical data regarding our cohabitation..."

Scully huffed a soft giggle against his collarbone. "Yes?"

"I have to admit, she ran a brilliant long con," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. "But now that we are fully funded and legally married... are you finally going to come into the kitchen and look at that toxicology report with me?"

Scully lifted her head, meeting his gaze. The absolute, unshakeable partnership shining in his green eyes was more breathtaking than any romantic vow he could have made. The inheritance had started as a trap, but it had ended up being the key that unlocked their entire world.

"Give me ten minutes," she whispered fondly, leaning over to brush her lips against his.

HOLY CROSS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL- WASHINGTON, D.C. 72 HOURS LATER

"I have exactly seventy-four dollars in my wallet, a maxed-out Discover card, and a very used FBI badge." Mulder paused, squinting at the worn leather case in his uninjured hand. "I should actually get this replaced," he muttered, glaring at the sterile hospital walls as if they had personally offended him. He shifted his weight on the edge of the mattress, wincing slightly as the movement pulled at his bandaged right shoulder. "Do you think that's enough to bribe the Chief of Surgery, or do I need to throw in something else?"

Scully didn’t look up from the medical chart in her hands. She stood near the door, her posture perfectly professional, but the corners of her mouth were twitching, betraying her intense amusement.

"He's a doctor, Mulder. I don't think he takes Discover." She finally lowered the clipboard, her blue eyes sparkling with a teasing, wicked light. "Besides, you are recovering from a severe gunshot wound. If you behave yourself, and your white blood cell count remains stable, I might consider advocating for your release in another week."

Mulder let out a low, utterly pathetic groan, letting his head fall back against the pillows. "A week? Scully, if I spend one more night in this bed without you in it, I am going to spontaneously combust."

Her smile faltered slightly, the teasing doctor making way for the fiercely protective partner. She stepped closer to the bed, her voice dropping into a hushed, anxious register. "I'm serious, Mulder. I don't like the idea of you being discharged so soon. We don't even have a security detail assigned to our apartment yet. Returning home completely exposed without a guard..."

Mulder reached out with his uninjured left hand, his long fingers gently capturing her wrist to halt her spiraling thoughts. He tugged her just a fraction closer. "Scully," he interrupted softly, his thumb tracing the erratic pulse at the base of her palm. "The Smoking Man has been trying to put me in the ground for seven years. If he or his cronies wanted to finish the job, they wouldn't politely wait for me to sign my discharge papers." He let the dark reality of that hang in the air for only a second before his hazel eyes darkened, the flippant banter melting into a heavy, intoxicating heat. "I am not staying in this bed. I want to go home. With you."

A soft, breathy laugh escaped her lips, the last of her clinical anxiety melting under the sheer weight of his stare. She leaned in, running a gentle hand over his uninjured left arm, her eyebrow raised provocatively. "Patience, Mulder," she murmured, her voice dropping into a dark, velvet register that sent a jolt of pure electricity straight to his groin.

—————————————-

SCULLY’S RESIDENCE GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON, D.C. 48 HOURS LATER

He did not last a week.

Forty-eight hours later, through sheer will and unrelenting stubbornness, Mulder was officially discharged.

The second the door to Scully’s Georgetown apartment clicked unlocked and swung open, the remaining threads of his patience snapped.

Before Scully could even reach for the light switch, Mulder’s uninjured left arm snaked around her waist. With a swift, possessive motion that defied his injuries, he pulled her flush against his uninjured side. His large hand slid low, gripping the curve of her ass to hoist her tight against his hip. Scully let out a startled gasp at the sudden, heavy friction, her arms flying up instinctively to wrap securely around his shoulders to anchor herself. Her fingers grazed the edge of the thick bandages on his right side, and a sudden spike of clinical panic flared in her mind, his stitches, but before she could pull back to protect him, or even formulate a protest, his mouth crashed down over hers.

He kicked the front door shut behind them with the heel of his boot, carrying her across the threshold while kissing her senseless. His mouth was greedy and desperate, tasting of the frantic, pent-up energy of the last few days, the last few years! He carried her blindly through the dark apartment, navigating entirely by memory, until she felt the back of her calves hit the edge of the living room sofa.

He dropped her onto the cushions.

Scully blinked, her breath scattered, as she watched him immediately pivot away.

Moving with a frantic, terrifyingly focused urgency, Mulder threw the deadbolt. Then he fastened the chain. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his encrypted cell phone, and physically popped the battery out, tossing both pieces onto the kitchen counter.

"Mulder, what are you doing?" she asked, a breathless laugh catching in her throat as she pushed herself up on her elbows.

He didn't answer right away. He marched over to the end table, grabbed her landline, and violently yanked the cord straight out of the wall jack. The plastic clip snapped with a sharp crack.

"The Syndicate, the FBI, and the Lone Gunmen are officially dead to us for the next forty-eight hours," Mulder announced, his voice dark, rough, and uncompromising. He turned to face her, his eyes burning with a feral, possessive heat in the dim light of the streetlamps filtering through the blinds. "Call me paranoid, Scully, but historically speaking, every time we get even remotely close to this exact moment, the universe decides to throw a weaponized bee or something of that ilk at us. I'm making sure we aren't interrupted."

He didn't give her a chance to reply. He crossed the room in three massive strides, leaning down to scoop her right back up into his good arm. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her skin as he carried her straight down the hall.

He breached the bedroom and tossed her unceremoniously onto the center of her own mattress.

Scully bounced slightly against the duvet, a brilliant, euphoric laugh bursting from her chest. Her hair was wild, fanned out against the pillows like dark fire. "I have to admit, Mulder," she breathed, her eyes dark and heavy with desire as she looked up at him. "I really like your enthusiasm."

"You have no idea," he rasped.

He stood at the edge of the bed and reached for the hem of his t-shirt with his left hand, carefully pulling it over his head to avoid aggravating his bandaged shoulder. The moonlight poured over him, highlighting the lean, hard lines of his chest, abs and the dark bruising mottling his ribs.

Scully’s laughter faded, her breath catching in her throat. Her clinical gaze involuntarily mapped the harsh, violent trauma across his skin, the deep, purple contusions, the stark white of the bandages, but her medical objectivity instantly evaporated, swallowed whole by the raw beauty of him.

It always floored her how utterly oblivious he was to his own physical appeal. He carried himself with the awkward intensity of a man entirely consumed by his intellect, genuinely unaware that sitting there bare-chested in the moonlight, he was the most breathtaking man she had ever seen.

The banter evaporated. The room shrank down to just the two of them, the air suddenly thick and incredibly fragile.

Moving on pure instinct, Scully shifted forward to the edge of the mattress. Remaining on her knees, she found herself perfectly level with his waist. Mulder’s breath hitched as she reached out, her deft hands settling over the heavy silver buckle of his belt.

"You’re at a slight physical disadvantage," she murmured, her voice dark and rough as she flicked the leather loose. "Let me help."

He let out a shuddering exhale, his good hand gripping her hip to steady himself as she dragged his zipper down. The backs of her knuckles brushed the rigid, aching strain of his erection beneath his dark cotton boxers, drawing a low, wrecked groan from the back of his throat. Scully's eyes darkened, her gaze fixed on the hard lines of his lower abdomen as she slipped her fingers inside the waistband of his slacks and boxers all at once.

With a slow, deliberate slide, she pushed the fabric down over his narrow hips, dragging it past his thighs until the heavy garments dropped to the floor. Mulder kicked his boots and the tangled clothes away, stepping out of them until he stood bare.

Scully inhaled a sharp, stuttering breath. Her extensive medical background had given her a very clear, objective baseline for male anatomy, but the heavy, formidable length and girth of him shattered any clinical average. Perhaps it was because she was right at eye level, but the stark, overwhelming heat and undeniable size of him made her pulse roar deafeningly in her ears.

She sat back on her heels, her hands moving to the buttons of her blouse. But Mulder stepped forward, his bare thighs brushing the edge of the mattress as his good hand caught her wrists to stop her.

"I want to," he whispered.

The frantic energy of the living room vanished, replaced by a slow, aching reverence. Relying entirely on his uninjured left hand to protect his freshly stitched right shoulder, he unbuttoned her blouse one-handed with deliberate precision, his knuckles brushing against the warm, bare skin of her chest with every flick of his fingers. As he pushed the fabric off her shoulders, his left hand tangled with hers. The heavy brushed gold of his wedding band clinked softly against the platinum and diamonds of hers. Mulder paused, lifting her hand to press a slow, reverent kiss directly over her diamond band before his eyes mapped her body like a starving man.

He pressed her back down into the mattress, following her down. Because of his shoulder, he couldn't brace his full weight over her, so he shifted to his side, pulling her flush against the hard, burning length of his body.

Scully reached for him, her hands desperate and urgent. She traced the broad expanse of his chest, her palms reveling in the rough, intoxicating friction of his chest hair against the hard muscle beneath. As her arms slid to wrap around him, her fingernails lightly scraped down the dip of his spine. The sensation drew a wrecked, vibrating groan from his throat. He angled his head, slanting his mouth fiercely over hers.

He swallowed her breathless gasp, his tongue thrusting past her parted lips to drag fiercely against the hot, slick velvet of her mouth. The wet, heavy sound of their kiss filled the quiet bedroom as he tilted his head to deepen the angle, his mouth possessing hers with a frantic rhythm. He bit gently at the swell of her lower lip, soothing the sting with a deep, sweeping stroke of his tongue. Scully moaned blindly into his mouth, her body arching upward to press flush against his bare chest as he drank down the sound, kissing her until they were both panting, dizzy, and absolutely drunk on the taste of each other.

Mulder forced himself to slow down. After years of restraint, of stolen glances and near-misses, he was determined to remember every single second of this moment.

His good hand slid down her stomach to the waistband of her slacks, his long fingers working the clasp loose before slowly, deliberately dragging the heavy fabric down over the curve of her hips and thighs. He tossed the garment over the edge of the bed, his dark eyes never leaving hers.

That left only the delicate, pale pink lace of her panties and bra.

He stared down at her, his hazel eyes darkening until they were almost nearly black, undone by the sight of her. For years, he had watched her armor herself in stiff wool suits, sensible trench coats, and dark, impenetrable layers, guarding her body as fiercely as she guarded her heart. To finally see the soft, unapologetically feminine secret she kept hidden beneath all that FBI bureaucracy was a devastating shock to his system.

A low, ragged sound broke from the back of his throat.

"Pink," he breathed, his voice thick with a heavy, intoxicating mixture of reverence and raw hunger. A slow, awe-struck smile touched the corners of his mouth. "All these years sitting across from you at that desk, and I never would have guessed pink."

Scully flushed, a sudden, shy heat blooming across her chest and cheeks. She moved to cross her arms over her torso, suddenly hyper-aware of her own vulnerability, but Mulder was faster.

His uninjured hand shot out, his long fingers gently but firmly catching her wrists to stop her from hiding herself.

"Don't," he whispered, the teasing instantly vanishing from his voice, replaced by absolute worship. He looked down at her, his gaze sweeping over the contrast of the pale lace against her porcelain skin, his chest heaving. "You are absolutely breathtaking."

His pointer finger traced the scalloped edge of the lace bra along her ribs with punishing slowness before he leaned in to press his open mouth against her trembling skin.

Her heart hammering against her ribs, Scully took the initiative. Holding his feverish, dark gaze, she reached around her back, her fingers deftly unfastening the clasp. She drew the delicate pink straps slowly down her arms, letting the lace fall away before tossing the bra to the side of the bed. The moonlight spilled over her bare breasts, drawing a raw, ragged groan from Mulder's throat.

He shifted his weight, entirely captivated. For years, he had built a thousand agonizing, late-night fantasies about exactly what this would look like, how her porcelain skin would feel under his hands, how she would react to his touch. But the reality of it completely eclipsed his imagination. The rapid, fluttering rise and fall of her chest, the heavy, exquisite sway of her bare breasts, and the dark, flushed peaks hardening under his gaze were infinitely more intoxicating than anything his brilliant mind could have ever conjured.

He couldn't hold back a second longer. He lowered his head, his rough stubble grazing the soft swell of her breast before his mouth descended completely. He drew one tight, aching nipple into the hot, wet heat of his mouth, swirling his tongue over the peak before clamping down with a firm, rhythmic suction. Scully gasped loudly, her back arching completely off the mattress as she tangled her fingers frantically into his hair.

"Mulder..." she whimpered, the sweet, breathless sound of it driving him wild. He laved the sensitive peak, pulling a heavy, liquid heat straight to her core, before shifting to lavish the same devouring, reverent attention on the other side. He tasted and teased her flushed flesh until she was writhing and panting beneath him.

The air in the room grew impossibly thick as he finally forced his mouth to travel lower, leaving a trail of hot, wet kisses down her ribs.

His thumb swept over the slope of her stomach, lightly tracing the edge of the silk. He leaned down, replacing his fingers with his mouth, pressing a hot, open kiss just above the waistband of her panties that made a desperate, shuddering breath tumble out of her lungs.

With a slow, worshipful reverence, his good hand hooked into the lace at her hip. Meeting him halfway, Scully arched her lower back off the mattress, her fingers coming down to cover his. Working together in the heavy, breathless quiet, they slid the delicate silk down her legs, completely stripping away the final barrier.

When there was finally absolutely nothing left between them but bare, flushed skin and the heavy friction of their bodies, Mulder let out a long, ragged exhale. He pulled her perfectly flush against him, burying his face in her neck as he let her feel exactly what she was doing to him.

The overwhelming heat of their bodies drew a soft, desperate whimper from Scully's lips, her back arching off the mattress. He shifted his weight, lifting his head from her neck to capture her mouth in a brief, devouring kiss just to swallow the sound. But he didn't stay there. Tearing his mouth from hers, he trailed a line of hot, open-mouthed kisses down her jaw, her throat, and over the swell of her breast. His left hand was everywhere, sweeping down the curve of her hip, gripping her waist, and sliding lower to chart the soft skin between her thighs. He paused just long enough to drag in a shaky breath, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of holding her like this. "God, Scully," he rasped, his voice vibrating against her chest. "Incredible."

"Mulder," she gasped, her eyes fluttering shut as she chased that sound. "Talk to me."

She tangled her fingers into his dark hair, the intensity of his touch making her head spin. She had always harbored a secret, desperate weakness for the low, gravelly timbre of his voice, the way it vibrated in the dark and grounded her when the world tilted out of control. But more than that, his voice was a lifeline, reminding her she was never alone, they were two halves of the same soul.

He paused, lifting his head just enough to look up at her. His eyes were dark, consumed by a feral, intoxicating heat. "I'll be honest," he rasped, his breath ghosting over the feverish skin of her stomach. "I am struggling for words right now, but I'll do my best. If I am incoherent... you'll understand why."

Instead of answering right away, he shifted his weight lower. His mouth parted, dragging a slow, wet, exquisitely hot lick straight up the sensitive skin of her inner right thigh.

A heavy, surrendered sigh broke from Scully's chest as her hips instinctively arched upward into the touch. "Yes!"

Mulder let out a soft, approving hum. "Hmmm," he murmured against her skin, the dark vibration of his voice sending a fresh shockwave of heat straight through her core. "I know how you bite the inside of your cheek to hide your smile when I say something ridiculous." He trailed a searing, wet kiss an inch higher, his lips brushing the softest part of her thigh. "Just so I won't have the satisfaction of knowing you actually think I'm funny."

Scully’s fingers tangled blindly into the sheets, her knuckles turning white as a frantic, liquid heat pooled in her belly.

His large hand slid upward, his thumb sweeping reverently over the curve of her hipbone. "I know the exact, specific pitch of your sigh when you're trying to pretend you aren't worried about me," he whispered.

He replaced his hand with his mouth, tracing a slow, torturous path downward. He dragged his lips across the soft plane of her stomach, lingering to press a hot kiss at the dip of her navel before continuing his descent.

As his mouth moved lower, brushing the bare skin of her lower abdomen, he paused just long enough to appreciate the neat, meticulously kept curls framing her sex, just as perfectly precise here as she was in every other aspect of her life. It was a beautifully intimate secret completely in line with her flawless nature. His breath fanned hot and heavy directly over the damp, aching heat between her thighs.

But he didn't kiss her there. Not yet. Deliberately taking his time, he shifted his attention just to the side, pressing a searing, open-mouthed kiss to the highly sensitive crease where her thigh met her hip. He drew out the tension, his rough stubble lightly grazing the delicate skin until she was physically trembling.

The anticipation stripped away the last remnants of her rational mind. She twisted her fingers into his dark hair, her hips instinctively bucking up to seek the direct contact he was denying her. A soft, breathless whimper escaped her lips. "Mulder, please..."

"I know how your voice drops into that soft, gentle register when you're talking to victims," he continued, his voice thick with a heavy, intoxicating reverence. His long fingers finally drifted down, but instead of seeking her most sensitive peak, he only traced the wet, slick outer edges of her sex. He parted her with a slow, tender slide of his thumb, exploring the slick heat of her entrance, purposely skirting around the aching bundle of nerves right above it.

Scully let out a raw, helpless moan, her head falling back against the pillows. She was undone by his devastating restraint, the contrast of his rough calluses brushing everywhere except where she was silently begging him to touch. He was edging her, pushing her right to the very brink, letting the heavy, liquid fire build until she felt like she was going to shatter from the longing alone.

"I know how you tuck your freezing hands into your trench coat pockets out in the woods," he murmured, his gaze traveling up the length of her flushed, writhing body. His hazel eyes were practically black with devotion. "And how much I've always wanted to just reach over and hold them to keep you warm."

Only then did he finally shift his hand, his thumb settling directly above that highly sensitive, aching peak. He applied a steady, rhythmic pressure, and the sudden, overwhelming relief of it drew a quiet, shattered sob of pleasure from her throat.

"But I didn't know this," he breathed, absolutely mesmerized by her surrender. "I never knew you would sound like this. For me."

Scully struggled to form the words, her chest heaving, her fingers twisting fiercely into his dark hair to urge him closer. "Only for you, Mulder," she gasped, her voice breaking into a breathless, fractured whisper as she looked down at him. "Always you.”

Mulder let out a rough, ragged sound, his body reacting instantly to her words. "Scully," he rasped, his voice a wickedly intimate growl. He shifted his hand, stroking her deeper, faster, watching the flush of pure desire spread across her chest as he deliberately pushed her closer to the edge. "Let go."

He shifted his weight, burying his face fully between her thighs. The sudden, intimate shock of his mouth against her bare skin made her entire spine bow off the mattress.

Slowly, with a reverent precision, he dragged the broad, wet flat of his tongue up one side of her slick, swollen folds, tasting the heavy, honeyed sweetness of her desire, before slowly tracing his way down the other side. He seamlessly repeated the motion, swiping that steady, intoxicating path a few times and finding a flawless, driving pace that pushed the sensation straight to her core, continuing until he sensed she was right on the verge of her climax.

Then, he paused right at the apex, deliberately pulling back just a fraction. She was left trembling, suspended in the dark, feeling only the heavy, searing heat of his exhaled breath fanning directly over the aching peak he had pushed to the absolute brink.

"Mulder... please," she broke, her voice a fractured, pleading wreck of its former self.

He looked up at her, his jaw shadowed and eyes dark with a terrifying, beautiful heat. "I love the sounds you make, Scully," he rasped, his voice thick and rough against the quiet of the room. "And I love knowing that I’m the one who can make you make them."

He finally lowered his head again, but the agonizing waiting didn't break: it evolved. He pressed his face deep into her, using the heat of his cheek and the firm line of his jaw to push back the soft, slick folds of her sex, pinning her open so she was exposed.

Instead of granting her the direct contact she was practically screaming for, he kept her held wide, the soft, wet velvet of his tongue tracing the delicate skin just above her tight center. He drew soft, slow, tantalizing circles around the swollen bundle of nerves beneath her hood, bathing the surrounding sensitive skin in slick heat while cruelly, deliberately skirting the desperate, aching peak itself. The friction was maddening, but it was the heavy weight of her own arousal that undid her; her body was betraying her, weeping a hot, rhythmic pulse of slickness that coated his lips and chin as she grew increasingly, impossibly wet under his steady attention.

The wet, evasive friction of his mouth, paired with the faint, rough graze of his stubble against the tender flesh he was holding back, pushed the sensation straight down to her bones, edging her until she was completely frantic.

Scully let out a ragged, uninhibited gasp, her fingers twisting violently into his dark hair, her knuckles white as she tried to drag him closer to where she actually needed him. The teasing, evasive circles weren't enough anymore; the fire was too high, the need too sharp.

"Fuck, Mulder... please," she choked out, the uncharacteristic words sounding like a prayer and a command all at once. "More. Mulder... now. I need it..."

The sound of her vocal, absolute surrender, the way her voice fractured into those small, jagged pleas, drove Mulder wild. He didn't make her suffer through the waiting a single second longer. A low, possessive growl vibrated against her skin as his large hands gripped her hips, his thumbs pressing possessively into her skin to anchor her securely against the mattress.

His mouth finally descended. He drew her aching, overstimulated peak fully into the wet heat of his mouth, clamping down with a firm, devouring suction as his tongue flicked fiercely, relentlessly against her.

He found the exact demanding pace she was begging for, his mouth devouring her as he drove her straight toward the edge.

"That's it, baby," he murmured against her slick skin.

"Come for me."

Scully lost whatever tenuous grip she had left on her composure. She threw her head back, a loud, helpless moan tearing from her throat to echo in the quiet bedroom.

The sound was completely unabashed,a raw, soaring cry of pure, unadulterated ecstasy that she didn't even try to stifle.

"Mulder! Mulder!" she sobbed out, her voice breaking into a high, keening pitch as the first devastating wave finally broke over her.

A blinding, white-hot rush of pure electricity exploded behind her closed eyelids, incinerating every single rational thought in her brilliant mind. Her spine bowed violently off the mattress in a rigid, trembling arch, her thighs locking instinctively around his head to trap him against her as she rode the massive, violent crash of pleasure.

The sensation was molten, a heavy, liquid fire that poured straight from the devastating suction of his mouth and flooded outward, saturating every single nerve ending in her body. She was vaguely aware of her hands twisting violently in his hair, her nails biting into the tense muscles at the nape of his neck to use him as her only anchor as another massive, rolling wave of euphoria crashed through her core, stealing all the oxygen from her lungs. Her hips bucked involuntarily against his face, chasing the relentless, wet flick of his tongue as the climax simply refused to end.

The waves kept coming, relentless and overlapping, pulling a continuous, breathless, sobbing chant of his name from her parted lips. She was consumed by the sensory overload, the heavy, dark musk of his skin, the searing heat between her thighs, and the roaring pulse of her own heartbeat deafening her ears, until she was entirely hollowed out, trembling violently in the chaotic, beautiful wreckage of her release.

Scully lay back against the pillows, her chest heaving, her skin flushed a deep, beautiful rose. The aftershocks of the climax continued to ripple through her, making her fingers twitch where they were still tangled in the dark silk of Mulder’s hair.

Mulder didn't move away. He stayed right there, looming over her with his weight braced on his uninjured arm, watching the life return to her eyes. He looked at her with a look of such profound, quiet adoration that it felt more intimate than the touch that had just broken her.

He was patient, a silent sentinel to her recovery, waiting for the frantic flutter of her pulse to slow. He didn't speak; he didn't need to. The way his gaze stayed fixed on hers, dark, steady, and overflowing with a reverence that bordered on the holy, said everything.

As the haze finally began to lift, Scully’s focus sharpened. She looked up at him, seeing the sweat beading on his forehead and the way his jaw was tight with the effort of protecting his freshly stitched shoulder. The doctor in her flickered back to life, but it was heavily tempered by the woman who had just been completely claimed.

"I want you to lay back," she breathed, her hands sliding from his dark hair to press flat against the damp heat of his chest. A wicked, breathtaking authority darkened her blue eyes. "Your shoulder can't take any more of this, Mulder. I want to be on top."

A low, ruined groan scraped the back of his throat. "Yes, ma'am." He willingly surrendered, letting her gently push him flat against the pillows.

Scully swung her leg over his hips, straddling him. The visual of her pale skin drove him wild as she settled her weight securely over his pelvis.

And then, with a slow, deliberate push, she sank down onto him. The sheer reality of it, after years of near-misses, stolen glances, and desperate yearning, shattered them both the second they finally joined. Mulder let out a harsh, ragged groan as her incredibly tight, slick heat swallowed him inch by agonizing inch.

She braced her hands flat against his chest, her blue eyes locking fiercely with his as she pushed all the way down. A sharp, breathless gasp tore from her lips as her petite frame was forced to accommodate the staggering reality of his size. She was stretched to her absolute physical limit, taking the complete, formidable length of him until there was absolutely no space left between them.

The tight, searing friction of her wrapping so snugly around him was a blinding shock to his system. He froze, his jaw clenched so tight it ached, his good hand gripping her hip to steady them both. He forced himself to hold completely still, burying his own desperate need to move so he could let her smaller body yield, soften, and fully adjust to the heavy, overwhelming fullness of him inside her.

She started to move with a reverent slowness, rising almost entirely before sinking back down. Mulder kept his good hand firmly anchored on her hip, helping to guide her pace.

He was entirely mesmerized.

The dim light spilling into the room caught the heavy, exquisite sway of her breasts with every deliberate movement, instantly stripping away the last of his carefully guarded eloquence. He couldn't just watch anymore. His good hand abandoned her hip, sliding upward to capture her breast. He kneaded the soft, heavy flesh, his thumb flicking reverently across her flushed, sensitive peak as she moved above him. "God, Scully," he rasped, his voice rough, breathless, and utterly undone by the heavy friction of her body taking him in. "You are so fucking tight."

He let his large, callused hand slide back down the curve of her waist, his long fingers spreading wide to grip her bare flesh firmly. He squeezed, pulling her against him. "Your ass is fucking perfect."

The crude, desperate honesty of his words, stripped of his usual guarded intellect, sent a fresh, staggering shockwave of liquid heat straight to Scully's core. The rational, logical part of her brain that had always dictated her restraint muted. Her body mutinied, moving entirely on its own, her hips rolling and gyrating instinctively against him. The slick, wet friction of her taking him in began to burn away their remaining patience.

Mulder’s eyes burned with a feral, uncompromising heat. He needed all of her, right now. "Come here," he commanded, the dark, filthy vibration of his voice washing over her. "Lean down closer to me. I want you to come again. Rub your clit right against me or use your fingers."

Scully obeyed. Dropping her weight, she bypassed his chest entirely to protect his injured shoulder, bracing her hands flat on the mattress on either side of his torso. She leaned her body flush against his, her red hair creating a wild, fiery curtain around their faces. She shifted her angle, grinding her slick, aching center directly against the hard, unforgiving bone of his pelvis, and slipped two fingers between their joined bodies to find her swollen peak. She picked up the pace, matching the frenzied, desperate rhythm of her hips with her hand.

The control they had been clinging to snapped. The slow, deliberate cadence vanished, replaced instantly by a frantic, starving collision.

He reached up, tangling his uninjured hand violently into her hair to drag her mouth to his. They collided in a hot, open-mouthed, devouring kiss. Their tongues tangled furiously, swallowing each other's breathless, ragged moans. The friction between them was a heavy, liquid fire. Mulder kept his mouth locked to hers, his hips arching upward to violently meet every relentless, wet slap of her body.

"Oh God!" she sobbed against his lips, shattering his final defense. She broke around him, her body bowing back as wave after wave of intense, blinding pleasure wrecked her. The tight, pulsing clench of her muscles milking him was the absolute final push.

Right on the very heels of her orgasm, Mulder broke the kiss, his head falling back against the pillows as a harsh, guttural shout ripped from his throat. His climax hit him with a terrifying, world-ending force, an agonizingly stretched-out release built on years of suppressed, maddening desire. He couldn't contain it.

"Fuck... Scully, fuck! Jesus!" he swore, his voice a raw, uninhibited roar. He bit his bottom lip and arched his hips upward, driving into her as deeply as physically possible, utterly starved for her. He emptied himself into her tight, throbbing heat, his entire body shuddering violently beneath her as the endless, pulsing waves of his orgasm seemed to stretch on forever, draining everything he had. As the violent tremors finally began to subside, leaving them both completely wrecked and gasping for air, Mulder reached up with a trembling hand. He framed her flushed, sweat-dampened face, pulling her gently back down to kiss her with an achingly tender, profound reverence as they both slowly drifted back down to earth.

For a long time, the only sounds in the room were their harsh, ragged breaths and the frantic hammering of their hearts against each other’s ribs.

Scully shifted her weight, carefully nestling against his uninjured left side to protect his stitched shoulder. With a soft, contented sigh, she draped her leg up and over his thighs, seeking as much skin-to-skin contact as physically possible in the dark. Mulder’s uninjured arm wrapped securely around her waist to anchor her against him, and he pressed a soft, exhausted kiss to her damp temple.

For a man who had built his entire life and career on having a theory for absolutely everything, he found himself entirely at a loss for words. The phrase I love you felt inadequate. It didn't even begin to cover the terrifying scope of his feelings for her.

I absolutely adore you, or I would gladly die for you, or I have been completely yours since the day you walked into that basement, or I want to spend the rest of my days worshipping you exactly like this, or even though my body is wrecked, my soul already aches to do that to you again.

But it was the only phrase he had.

He held her tighter, burying his face in her fiery hair.

"I love you, Scully." He whispered the words, his voice still rough and broken. He hoped to God she understood the vast, uncharted territory they were trying to cover.

Scully turned her head, resting her cheek against his bare chest, her hand gently tracing abstract patterns over his heart. She listened to the erratic, stabilizing rhythm of his pulse, letting the solid warmth of his skin anchor her. Her gaze drifted up to the stark white gauze taped securely to his right shoulder, a visual reminder of how dangerously close they had come to losing everything. Shifting slightly against him, she rose just enough to press a feather-light, lingering kiss directly to the thick bandages, her lips finding the exact spot of the injury beneath it in a silent, reverent acknowledgment of his survival. She understood perfectly, feeling the exact same terrifying, beautiful weight settling into her own chest.

Here, stripped of their armor and the crushing weight of the world they carried, there was finally nothing left to hide.

“Too. Much. Talking. Mulder. Fox.” Her voice drops into a syrupy lower pitch. “You can do other things besides talk, you know.”

At the sound of her words his mouth has slowly fallen wide open. He’s hit with a number of strong reactions that he can’t quite get a handle on. Part of him wants to burst out laughing, but he’s not sure this is funny. “Where… are you right now?”

“I’m at the hotel. Waiting for you. Where are you? I’ve been looking and looking—” She is interrupted by the sound of someone’s voice, someone’s low post-adolescent masculine voice. “Thanks, cutie.” She giggles in a breathy, throaty way Mulder is certain he has never, ever heard from her, in all the six years he has known her.

“Mulder, somebody just told me I was a beautiful woman,” she whispers loudly. “He walked all the way across the casino to tell me. He has a shaved head, and I sorta want to go over there and rub it.”

“The … casino?” Mulder’s mouth is completely dry. Fear has started to ramp up. He begins to pace back and forth across his living room. “What casino? What city are you in? Have you been drinking?”

“Las Vegas,” she says. “You told me to come to Las Vegas, you goof.” Her voice goes sing-song. “I always do what you tell me, don’t I, Agent Mulder?”

“I didn’t tell you to—”

“Everybody keeps asking me if I’ve been drinking,” she says petulantly. “The bartender. The man at the bar. The other man at the bar. The … other man at the bar. But I haven’t had a single drink, not even one! Just an autopsy.”

“An autopsy? Why? Who did you—”

“I want a drink,” she announces. “Gin and tonic. Wait, what happened to the bar, Mulder? It was here a second ago.” Her voice goes distant. “I might need to set you down and look for the bar.”

“Stay on the phone,” he begs. “Scully, is it possible you’ve been drugged?”

“I’m going to tell you something you don’t know about me. It’s an important secret. Shhh.” She lowers her voice. “I’m really, really good at getting men to buy me drinks at bars. Did you know that?“

“Uh, no.”

“Are you surprised?”

It seems more than remotely plausible that men would want to buy Scully drinks at bars. “Not exactly, no.”

“Do you know my trick?”

He hesitates. “No.”

“I’m a flirt.” She laughs in that ridiculously breathy way again, and it seems to be aimed directly in his ear. “Melissa said I was a tease. But no, no, no! Not a tease. Just a flirt. I used to be the best flirt.”

“Scully,” Mulder says, keeping his voice level, but starting to feel decidedly frantic. “What I really need you to tell me is the name of the hotel you are in.”

There is a pause. “When a man buys you a drink at a bar, sometimes he thinks it means you’ll go home with him. Have sex with him …” A stage whisper. “Fuck him. Of course it doesn’t always mean you want to fuck him.” Her voice shifts to that low, dark molasses quality again. “Sometimes you want to, Mulder.”

Mulder smacks his head into the palm of his hand. Too, too many reactions, not all virtuous. “Jesus, please tell me, what’s the name of your hotel?”

“I could go home with someone if I wanted to,” she sounds almost defiant. “Any time I want to. I could right now.”

“Scully.” Mulder’s voice is as steady and firm as he can make it. “I know you could. Jesus Christ, I know you could. But you’re definitely incapacitated. Please don’t do anything—just stay on the phone with me, okay?”

She groans in apparent frustration. “Why don’t you ever let me have sex, Mulder?”

He wills himself not to analyze that statement too carefully. “You’re not yourself. Let’s try to figure out what’s happening here. Do you see a sign saying what hotel you’re in?”

“How do you know I’m not myself?” she whines.

“A sign on the wall, maybe?”

“You don’t know what I’m like.”

“I know you, don’t I?” he says in exasperation. “You don’t normally act like this. Is there a sign—”

“That’s a lie. I do normally act like this. What am I doing? Talking on the phone with you. I talk on the phone with you alllllllll the time. Constantly. I am acting like myself.”

“You don’t normally want to have sex with strangers in bars, Scully.”

“That’s a lie, too,” she says. “I do. Want to. Sometimes. Sometimes I might sit in a bar and think, maybe I will let that man buy me a drink. He’s tall and good-looking, and he could take me home and throw me on the bed and fuck me until I can’t see straight.” She laughs again, full on.

“Oh,” Mulder manages, his voice strangled.

“But do you want to know a secret, though?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. Another stage whisper. “That’s not what I think about the most.”

“No…?”

“That’s not what I think about at night. And in the bathtub. And … lots of times. Do you want to know what I think about?”

He really, really does. He one hundred percent does. But fuck it all to hell, he knows he needs to change the subject. He can’t be the guy digging for titillating information when she’s like this. And Jesus Christ, he can’t lose sight that her safety is possibly at risk. He’s got to get his head out of his dick here.

“Scully,” he says, clenching his jaw in frustration, “please forget about that, please, and help me figure out where you are. I just really need to know the name of your hotel.”

“I don’t remember the name,” she huffs. “Stop asking. Why aren’t you even curious about what I think about? Don’t you even care?” She sounds disconsolate.

“Can you find someone to ask? A concierge desk maybe?”

“Why don’t you even want to know my secrets?”

He sighs. “I just think you’re going to find it embarrassing later,” he says quietly.

“Will I?” She giggles again, and although he prefers Scully with her faculties intact, he does appreciate how much this version of Scully laughs. “Why would I be embarrassed?”

“Because, well.” He gulps. “Your sexual fantasies are just usually something that you keep private. I think it would bother you that I knew what they were.”

She whispers. “But you’re curious?”

Yes. Yes. Very curious. He chooses his words carefully. “Not enough to make you uncomfortable later.”

She groans again, and the sound is so prolonged and low, right in his ear, that it adds to the growing problem of Mulder’s inappropriate and shame-provoking arousal during this emergency phone call.

“Scully, scan the room,” Mulder says. “Look for someone wearing a uniform that might have a hotel name on it.”

“I’m walking to see better. There are so many people here,” she says. He can hear the murmur of crowd sounds around her. “Oopsy—I didn’t mean to bump into you, cutie. You have the cutest little cowboy mustache, you know that? What did you say?” There’s a pause and some muffled talking. “Noooo, I can’t do that right now, I’m on the phone with Mulder.”

Mulder freezes mid-pace. “What did he ask you to do?”

“He was having a little private party he invited me to,” she whispers. “But I’m doing your thing now, Fox, so I can’t go.”

Mulder feels sweat beading on his forehead. “This is very, very important. Listen to me. Don’t go anywhere with anyone,” Mulder says, gesturing emphatically with his hand, although she can’t see him. “No private parties. Stay in public, stay on the phone here.”

She yelps. “Ouch, stop.”

Mulder jumps. “What? What happened, Scully?”

“That lady bumped into me,” Scully complains. “Too many people.”

“I don’t like this,” Mulder mutters. “I don’t like the crowd. Go to the perimeter of the room. Avoid other people.”

“I can’t talk to people?”

“Are you walking out of the crowd?”

“I always do what you tell me to, Mulder,” she says in a husky voice again. Her tone changes. “But Mulder, you never let me do anything fun, not like I used to do. You are such a … what’s the word Bill’s friends used to say? You’re such a cockblock.”

“W-What?”

“It’s so unfair,” she says, another whine. “I never go out. I can’t date anyone.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “I have no authority over you. You can date whoever you want, Scully, when you aren’t incapacitated.”

“Ohhhh, that’s not true,” she says, a low laugh. For a moment she almost sounds like herself. “Nooooo.”

“Scully—”

“Can you imagine what you would do?” She starts giggling. “You would make a face like this…” She pauses, still giggling, presumably demonstrating his face, a demonstration Mulder can’t see. “You would throw a temper tantrum.” She giggles again, even snorting a little.

“Okay, okay,” he tries, “that’s not—”

“But it wouldn’t be funny,” she interrupts. “It’d be sad. Because I don’t like to see you upset. You’re my Mulder.”

Mulder touches the phone lightly. “Hey,” he says softly, stupidly moved by her childish statement. “You’re my … Scully, too.”

“So no sex, Mr. Cockblock,” she exclaims loudly. “No sex with anyone. Not with men from bars, and not with you either.” A deep sigh. “Never, ever, ever with you. Even when it seems like it might happen, it doesn’t.”

He’s shocked into complete silence.

“Mulder,” she whispers. “I see someone dressed like Elvis in a what-do-you-call-it-suit. The people in space. Who travel in a ship? Pointy ears?”

“Star Trek,” Mulder says automatically, still numb from the previous statement.

“I knew you would know,” she says triumphantly. “Elvis in a Star thing suit. He’s dancing.”

“Scully… when you said…” he starts.

“When I said what?” she says. “When I called you a cockblock?” She giggles.

“No,” he says. “Never mind.”

“Can I ask you a question, Mulder?”

“I guess.”

“Do you have any sexual fantasies?”

Mulder paces back and forth a little faster, shaking his head. This is a nightmare. “Of course, Scully. You know about the videos that aren’t mine.”

“Ohhhhh, I get it, yeah,” she says knowingly. “Big tits, big hair, fakey fake orgasms. Like those girls in the group shower one? Who all scream in the exact same way every time? Why the exact same way?”

He pauses. “You’ve watched the group shower one, Scully?”

“But noooo. Not what I mean. I mean real fantasies. About real life.”

“I think most people have real life sexual fantasies,” Mulder dodges.

“He doesn’t want to say,” Scully announces conversationally to someone, presumably an innocent bystander. “He thinks they’re private.”

“Well, yeah,” Mulder says, flustered. “I think most people would say they’re private.”

“Mulder,” she says, her voice again some sexy, dark-hued parody of her normal argumentative work voice, “I’m not talking about most people. I’m talking about you.”

“Scully,” he protests pathetically.

“Maybe you need an example,” she suggests.

“No, no,” he says hastily. “No examples.”

“What about one … where you stop the car? And you get out of the car to flash your flashlight in the dark trees, but it’s nothing, and you’re very frustrated. So we come back to the car but instead of getting in, you keep talking and you …. press me up against the side of the car and you’re speaking to me, close, and you have me pinned hard. And ohhhhh, there’s your breath on my neck.”

“You’re talking about … me and you?”

“Yes, silly,” she says. Her voice turns breathier. “And then your mouth is on my neck, moving down, and it’s everywhere, and I’m gasping, and you pull off the buttons of that white silk work blouse—”

“Oh my god,” Mulder says. His mind is way too quickly following her scattered thought process, filling in details easily where she has left them out.

“Do you like that one? Because I have others.”

“Uhhhh,” he says. “That one is just fine.”

“I like the getting fucked against the car idea,” she whispers confidentially. “Skirt pulled up, panties down, shirt wiiiide open, bra hitched up, back against the metal, you’re kind of grunting, those lips crushed in my ear.” She sighs luxuriously. “Is that everyone’s fantasy, or just people who spend lots of time in cars with you, Mulder?”

He’s now got his palm on his stiff crotch, unwisely running it back and forth. It’s not the time, he really shouldn’t, but he has always had a weakness for phone sex, and this is Scully, it’s Scully. He can’t think straight any more.

“Mulder?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, tightly. He’s trying to get it back together.

“What do you think?”

“I think— I think it sounds…”

“Oh Mulder, yours probably are in the office all the time, aren’t they? You love the office sooooo much. With all the files.”

“You’re not … entirely wrong,” he says in a miserable voice.

“The desk?” she says huskily. “Is that it? Bent over?”

“Among others, sure.” He’s whispering, and he knows his cheeks are burning.

“You see, I guessed,” she says. “Not very imaginative, Agent Mulder.” She giggles again.

“Trust me,” he mutters. “I’m plenty imaginative. Imagination is not the problem.”

“You know,” she says in a low, liquid tone, “I wish you were here right now.”

His heart is thumping. The sultry sound of her voice sends blood rushing straight to his cock. He runs a finger down the side of the phone.

“I do, too,” he says, keeping his voice even with great effort. “Because… I think you need my back-up. And these things you’re saying, well, obviously they’re affecting me, I can’t hide that, but I don’t know if I’m really talking to you or whatever drug is in your system.”

There’s a pause. “You know, you’re just plain … sweet, Fox Mulder.”

He rolls his eyes and shifts weight between his feet, feeling like a teenager getting a compliment. “Come on, Scully. Give me a break here.”

She gasps into the phone, and he practically jumps to the ceiling.

“Mulder! Look! Look! Do you see who it is?”

“No.” He’s trying to readjust his pants. “I’m on the phone, Scully. I can’t see.”

“It’s Frohike,” she says excitedly. “He’s looking for someone. Maybe he’s looking for me, Mulder. Melvin! Yoo-hoo. I’m over here.”

“Frohike,” Mulder repeats. He narrows his eyes. “Frohike.”

“Yes. Is that Byers with him? Nooo, I don’t think so. Where did Byers go?” she says. “I think Hickey sees me, Mulder! I can’t wait to talk to him.”

“The Gunmen are with you,” he says grimly. And their days are numbered, he thinks.

“Of course they are, silly,” she says. “They’re the ones who brought me up to speed. That’s a funny phrase, isn’t it? Up to speed. Whoosh!”

Mulder hears Frohike’s urgent voice in the background. “...looking for you everywhere, Scully. Where have you been? Who are you talking to?”

“Hickey!” There’s a shuffling sound, and Mulder imagines that her arms have probably gone around the little man, no doubt giving him the thrill of his life. “Frohike, it’s Mulder. Want to talk to him?”

There’s a pause. “That’s Mulder on the phone? Right now?”

“Get on the phone, Frohike,” Mulder bellows into his phone, so loudly the window panes in his apartment vibrate.

“You don’t have to yell,” admonishes Scully.

“I’ll talk to him later, Scully,” Frohike’s voice says in the background.

“Frohike, what the fuck are you guys doing–” Mulder shouts into the phone receiver.

“Shhhhhhh,” Scully says. “Shhhhhh, you need to calm down, Mr. Crankypants.”

“Okay, okay,” he says to Scully, modulating his tone. “Just ask him if—”

“Listen, I’m going somewhere with Frohike now, okay, Mulder? He says it’s important.”

Mulder lets out a frustrated exhale. At very least he’s certain the Gunmen will prioritize her safety, although apparently he can’t be sure they won’t put her at risk for stupid reasons.

“Fine,” he says. “But give Frohike this message for me: I expect a full and a detailed explanation from him within twenty minutes…or I’m reporting the abduction of a federal agent, and every available member of law enforcement in metropolitan Las Vegas will be out searching for the Three Stooges, including every two-bit traffic cop and park ranger.”

“Waaaaaay too long of a message,” Scully complains.

“Uh, I heard,” comes Frohike’s voice nervously in the background.

“I mean it, Frohike,” Mulder says, raising his voice again so Frohike can hear.

“Hickey, do you know what Mulder said? He said—”

The call clicks off abruptly. Dial tone.

Mulder stands in the middle of his living room floor, phone in hand, unable to do a single thing.

***

The following day

Mulder leans against his kitchen table, phone cradled under his chin, scowling, listening closely to Scully’s explanation.

“It doesn’t take much to imagine the potential uses of the anoetic histamine,” Scully is saying. “Suggestibility, mind control. It’s troubling, to say the least. I’m going to write a full report when I get back.”

“That’s a good idea,” he says neutrally. “And you yourself were injected with it?”

“I was, yes,” she says. “I don’t remember very much of those hours, but evidently I presented as though I had been drinking a lot. I’m sure it was… humiliating. The whole experience has been unpleasant, to say the least.”

“And you’re okay? It sounds potentially unsafe, to be drugged up, suggestible, wandering around a Las Vegas hotel.”

She huffs a sigh into the phone. “The Gunmen claim I was safe the whole time. Trust me, Mulder, I was ready to throw all three of them out the penthouse window when I figured this whole thing out.”

“What time is your flight back, g-woman? You need a ride from the airport?”

“Sure, thank you – it’s around seven.” She pauses. “So Mulder … you and I didn’t speak on the phone yesterday at all?”

He bites his lip, hard. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I just felt like I might have remembered something about that. It’s a little fuzzy.”

“Hmm,” he says. “The memory effects sound interesting. Something for your report, I guess. So what’s your flight number?”

A heavy sigh. “We did speak, didn’t we?”

He rubs his forehead wearily. “Yeah.”

“It was … bad, wasn’t it?”

“Come on, Scully,” he says lightly, “we’re all friends here. Who among us hasn’t acted badly while drugged?”

“I can’t decide if I want you to tell me about it or not.”

“You don’t,” he says with finality. “Please trust me on this. You don’t.”

“Tell me just one thing I said, just to set my mind at ease,” she begs. “One thing so I can feel like I have some idea.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “All right.” He can hear her taking a breath in anticipation on the other end of the line. “You’re apparently very good at getting men to buy you drinks at bars. Not because you’re a tease, but because you’re a flirt.”

“Ah.” She exhales. “Okay. That’s not so bad. A little embarrassing. Not horrific.”

“No. Not so bad. See?”

“My flight number is 4543. I’ll meet you at the downstairs entrance like usual,” she says. He thinks she’s about to hang up, but there’s another pause and he can hear her inhale. “Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“You held back, didn’t you?”

“Please just drop it, Scully.”

“Something else,” she says. “Please.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t–”

“Loss of memory makes me nervous.”

“Okay,” he relents. “Okay. I know. I get it.” He considers for a moment. “Here’s another. Let me think about how to put this. Here goes: I thought Frohike was the only friend I had who was borrowing my videos that aren’t mine, but apparently I was wrong, because you were able to describe choice details from a scene.”

“Oh,” she says. “Oh.”

“There you go.”

“That’s more embarrassing.”

“They’re my videos, so not especially embarrassing to me.”

A pause. “The neighborhood cheaters one?”

“Nooooo,” he answers. “The group shower one, but holy shit, Scully. Just ask before borrowing next time, okay?”

“Mulder,” she says, “did I say other inappropriate things… things that…?”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” he says, and means it. “Nothing. Really.”

“The very fact you know what kinds of things I mean,” she says, her voice small, “makes me think that I did, and that I should be embarrassed.”

He considers how to put this. “You didn’t say anything that I couldn’t have said to you.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment. “You’ve flirted in bars to get drinks?”

“No comment,” Mulder says primly.

“You’ve practically taken your shirt off in a diner to get the last piece of pie from a waitress,” she says, “so I guess I can see it.”

“You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about, Scully.”

“Okay,” she says. “Thank you, Mulder.”

“So that’s that,” he says, a businesslike tone. “And I’ll see you at the downstairs entrance of the airport tonight.”

“All right,” she agrees. “And on the drive home, maybe you can tell me about all those imaginative office sex fantasies you have.”

After dinner, back in that brand new bed, it’s her naked body that is being savored. With Mulder’s face between her legs, lapping at her core, she lets out a long, deep moan. A loud one.

She surprises herself with her own volume and starts doing the same type of mental calculations she’d done in every apartment and motel room they’d ever shared – how thick were those walls, had anyone checked into the room next to theirs, if she could hear her upstairs neighbor moaning (while alone!) at all hours of the day and night (one time it was barely 9am!), then he could probably hear her, right?

And then it occurs to her.

There are no neighbors. No ice machine creating a high-traffic area right outside the door. No housekeeping staff making the rounds as the two of them try to sneak in a round of morning sex.

No need to adjust her volume at all.

She gets slightly louder, letting out a steady and only slightly whiny hum.

“So good. That feels so good,” she purrs, as she runs her fingers through Mulder’s hair.

While their new locale might change her bedroom behavior, she doubts it will have any effect on Mulder’s. Mulder doesn’t get loud. He rarely raised his voice in real life, even in their often volatile job, and when he did, it was pretty exclusively to locate her or alert her to danger.

That doesn’t mean he is quiet during sex. Far from it. He just prefers to whisper his intimate insights into her ear or hair or skin or…other places.

For instance, she can feel his lips moving in that very moment, for purposes other than their obvious current occupation. She can’t make out the exact words, but she definitely feels his full lips and warm breath pressing plosive P’s against her lower lips. Based on history and context clues, she guesses he is saying some combination of his favorites – perfect, pretty, pussy.

Scully doesn’t expect or want him to change at all. She can be loud enough for the both of them. In fact, it will be for the both of them because Mulder’s greatest pleasure is when Scully lets herself go. And that is exactly what she does as she continues to let her sounds of satisfaction echo out into their new home.

When she tugs on his hair, indicating she wants – needs – something else, Mulder rises from his position between her thighs and comes to stand by the bedside, still in his boxer briefs, his erection jutting out at Scully’s eye-level as she raises herself to bend towards it. She pulls down his waistband with vigor, forcing his hard cock to spring into view.

Scully gives an appreciative groan as she wraps her lips around his head and a hand around his shaft. She has never seen, or heard, the appeal of the exaggerated gagging noises popular in some of his entertainment choices, but she knows the combined power of the sound and vibration of a well-placed moan. She knows Mulder appreciates it to. In fact, he appreciates it so much that he has to gently pull her up by the shoulders to stop her ministrations after only a few seconds.

She looks up expectantly and sees him standing with his eyes closed tight in concentration, determined to keep control.

“No, I don’t want your mouth full,” he says huskily before he helps guide her up onto all fours, facing away from him.

She can never get anything past her profiler. He knows what she wants tonight and knows that taking her from behind is the best way to do it.

As he guides himself inside her and places his hands on her hips, Scully drawls out an awed, “Oh God.” He moves incrementally until he reaches the hilt.

“Every inch. I want to feel every inch filling me up,” Scully says with conviction.

The scene earlier in the kitchen had been the most traditionally domestic evening they’d ever had - eating dinner at the actual dining room table, compiling a list of essentials they still needed from the pharmacy and the hardware store. They hadn’t unpacked any stemware yet, so they drank their fancy red wine out of coffee mugs. How had she gone from drinking wine out of a mug with a cartoon of the Loch Ness Monster on the side to shouting the filthiest things she’d ever said out loud in less than an hour?

Maybe she really can have it all.

Mulder establishes a hard, pounding pace as Scully continues to vocalize, now producing full-throated shouts of pleasure.

“Tell me, Scully. Tell me,” Mulder gritted out.

“So. Fucking. Good,” each word punctuated by a thrust of Mulder’s hips.

He pulls her up to just her knees, bringing her back flush with his heaving chest. His arms wrap around her from the front as he drops his head over her shoulder to scatter kisses there and whisper again, into her ear this time.

“You keep it up, someone will hear you. They’ll be able to hear you down the road,” he says, without a hint of reproach.

“Good. Let them hear. Let them hear you fucking my brains out,” she cries, punctuating her statement with a sob of pleasure.

Scully thinks she hears a shocked gasp from Mulder’s lips, but if so, it doesn’t take him long to recover from his surprise. The pace of his thrusts becomes unrelenting. His left hand cups her right breast, his thumb rubbing her hard nipple, as his right hand slides down to begin vigorously rubbing her clit.

Oh. He’s taken her last statement as a personal challenge.

Scully hears herself get louder and louder as she nears her peak. Noises she’d never thought she could make before. Guttural sounds alternating with high-pitched whines as she gets close, so close. Mulder slows back down again to administer hammering strokes while he adds more pressure with his middle finger massaging her clit, and finally Scully lets loose a high-pitched scream as she’s pushed over the edge.

She falls forward onto her forearms as she continues to ramble nonsense words into the mattress between gasping breaths. She removes herself from Mulder’s cock, now overly sensitive while still riding out her pleasure on shaky legs, but she reaches her hands behind her to keep contact and run them along the backs of his thighs. She allows herself a few moments to recover before she addresses a matter still at hand.

“You need to cum. I need you to cum.”

That was definitely the loudest she’d ever expressed that particular sentiment aloud.

“Please, baby. Please,” she pleads as grips his thighs.

She knows he’s already dangerously close and the rare term of endearment and even rarer begging from her will only push him even closer to where they both want him to be.

Mulder motions for her to move and make room for him as he lies down on his back. She tosses a leg over to straddle his hips before lowering herself on to his throbbing cock. She indulges in a few rotations of her hips and bounces up and down on his dick before he reaches out for what she knows he needs.

He needs to be face to face. Mulder pulls her down so that they are nearly chest to chest, just far enough apart that her nipples drag tantalizingly through his chest hair as they move together. He places one hand in her hair as he looks into her eyes with his awe and adoration and arousal on full display. Scully feels another wave building inside of herself and makes sure he can see the love reflected in her eyes as clearly as he can hear the lust reflected in her voice.

“Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Please never stop,” Scully begs.

Mulder pulls her flush against him by wrapping both arms around her completely. They bury their faces in one another’s necks as their movements become more erratic, both striving to push the other over the edge.

“I’ll never stop. I never want to stop,” Mulder pants in her ear, sounding both dazed but determined at the same time. One palm is cradling the back of her head, petting her hair reassuringly as he makes his vow. “I’m going to fuck you forever. As long as you’ll let me. I’ll never stop. Every night. I want to fuck you forever.”

Scully screams a primal, extended string of yesses all through Mulder’s final powerful thrusts, their grinding undulations during their shared climax, and his pulsating finish deep inside of her.

Even though they’re both sweaty and breathing heavy after, they remain close, huddled together like they’re going to share secrets. But neither speaks for several minutes. It’s so quiet that eventually they can hear the gravel scattering and the whoosh of the wind as a car passes out on the main road.

“I guess we’re not as far from civilization as I thought,” she says.

“Should we put in some soundproofing? Because I don’t think I can go back to quiet fucking after tonight.”

Scully scoffs and gives him a slight slap on the arm, but he just uses the arm to pull her closer and drop a kiss to the top of her head.

“You were so amazing,” he whispers into her hair. She grins in spite of herself, and his crass remark is forgotten.

“I’m afraid it did take me a minute to figure it out, though. I thought maybe I was just really blowing your mind tonight,” he says with a self-deprecating grin.

She thinks about rolling her eyes and making a sarcastic quip about the earth moving and giving him a deadpan, “You animal.” But something stops her as she looks up into his eyes and touches his cheek. She needs to tell him. She wants him to hear.

“No, but…this is how it feels every time,” she admits.

He looks truly astonished for a moment and like he wants to reply, but then his glistening eyes regard her so tenderly that they say everything, loud and clear.